According to Erin Ball, the biggest challenge of starting an aerial acrobatics course is finding a space with high enough ceilings.

Ball, who’s been practicing aerial acrobatics for the past five years, owns Twisted, a year-and-a-half old company that teaches aerial arts like trapeze and silks.

Trapeze, the famous performing art invented in 1859 by Frenchman Jules Leotard, involves a wooden rod, suspended using a rope or cord on either side. A performer can swing from one trapeze bar to another, but Ball teaches static trapeze. Here, the bar stays still.

Meanwhile, the aerial silk is a piece of fabric that hangs hooked to the 20-foot-high ceiling. Contrary to popular belief, the fabric is usually chiffon, polyester or synthetic nylon.

Since the sport requires so much twisting and turning, there are no safety lines used. The performer has to rely on their willpower and strength. “You’re constantly having to hold your body weight,” Ball said.

But Twisted is a small venture compared to aerial silk performers at places like Cirque du Soleil, where they perform much more complex sequences at even greater heights.

Cirque du Soleil was the birthplace of the art of aerial silks. It was first invented in 1995 by André Simard, an acrobatic research and development specialist for the Canadian entertainment company.

Ball first got inspired to try aerial acrobatics after the Kingston Buskers Festival.

“I saw a girl doing a handstand on a guy’s arm and I thought, wow, that’s the coolest thing ever,” she said.

After that, Ball said she looked into getting started with aerial acrobatics through classes in Toronto.

“I started training and fell in love with it,” she said.

Throughout the hour-long lesson, Ball works with each of the four students to teach them new move sequences on the silks or the trapeze bar.

The students seem apprehensive but excited. Some of them have been coming here for years, steadily building their endurance, strength and flexibility.

But, with the growing popularity of aerial acrobatics, students continue signing up for one of five of Ball’s classes.

“Almost all of my classes are full right now,” she said.

She’s happy to teach them, although each class can only take up to six students.

Today’s lesson involves a splits balance, a sequence Ball created herself.

The students must take each foot into a foot lock, moving their body down into the splits. After this, they do what’s called a splits roll-up for each leg — a move that involves a quick maneuver that rolls the student around horizontally. It leaves a student upside down for a split-second.

When Ball shows the class this move, she’s confident and swift with the silks, ending the move with what looks like the splits in mid-air, a silk wrapped around each foot.

It all seems so easy.

The students all look nervous, their shoulders trembling while they try to find the right moment to let go.

After some attempts, they seem confident. And for a second, the split is hands-free. Each student raises her arms above her head, in a “voila!” motion.

Wobbling, they quickly return their hands to the silk and slide smoothly down. You can see how proud Ball is of her students, even as they nurse the growing calluses on their palms.

Seeing students’ progress through classes is the most rewarding part of teaching, she said.

“[It’s] seeing people fall in love with it the way that I did,” she said.

This article has been updated to reflect the following corrections: The students in Erin Ball’s class have been practicing their skills for years, not weeks. Additionally, Ball created the splits balance sequence, not the moves. Incorrect information appeared in the Feb. 1 issue of the Journal. The Journal regrets the error.